Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), a member of the Transportation Committee. Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman, and I particularly want to thank Mr. Goodlatte for his extraordinary leadership on this issue. We both supported a virtually identical amendment in 1995. Now, when I first came to Congress, I did not support a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. I said things similar to my good friend and colleague Mr. Neal from Massachusetts: It's a gimmick. We don't need it. People will come together. We can make these decisions. It didn't take me long in observing the Congress to realize that there's an infinite capacity in this Congress to kick the can down the road. And the problem is that can's getting pretty darn heavy to kick down the road, and it's going to land on the next generation with full force--$15 trillion of debt. For the first time since World War II, this year our deficit exceeds the gross domestic product. Now, we're going to have to force people to make tough decisions. That's a conclusion I came to when I changed and I supported the amendment back in the mid-nineties. Now, just think about it. It passed the House, failed by one vote in the Senate. And had that become the law of the land, today we would be paying down the last of the debt.…”